November 11, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



657 



the brightest and warmest days made all 

 sorts of shifts to reduce the exposure, 

 changing the position of the leaflets from 

 morning until evening, while in the shade 

 the leaflets hung out horizontally and were 

 not noticeably heliotropic. The leaves in 

 the shade were usually much thinner than 

 those grown in full exposure. The record 

 of this fact was made by sunprints of the 

 leaves themselves, the shaded ones invari- 

 ably being less opaque than the ones grown 

 in the sun. N"umerous sunprints were 

 shown to establish the fact of the lesser 

 density of the shade-grown leaves. A study 

 of wild plants along the same lines was 

 made in a wood lot and adjoining clearing. 

 The cinnamon fern ( Osmunda) was noted 

 in particular to have graceful, drooping 

 leaves in the wooded land, while in the 

 open the fronds were nearly upright. The 

 leaflets of this fern grown in the shade 

 were .098 millimeters in thickness, while 

 in the cleared land the thickness was .258 

 millimeters. Many other differences as to 

 hairiness, color of stems, etc., were noted. 



Influence of Wet Weather upon Parasitic Fungi. 



Dk. Byron D. Halsted. 



This paper records a striking parallelism 

 between excessive rainfall and the abun- 

 dance of fungi. May of the present year 

 was remarkably wet, and the following June 

 brought an abundance of parasitic fungi, 

 rust of hollyhock, cedar and mandrake ; 

 smut of spring lily, wheat and oats ; and 

 many other. The peach-leaf curl fungus 

 was common everywhere. The year 1889 

 was noted for its wet summer and also for 

 the destruction of potatoes by the rot. The 

 year, since then, nearest like 1889 was 1897, 

 when again July was phenomenal for heavy 

 precipitation, it being 10.19 inches in 1889 

 and 11.42 in 1897. Last season was like 

 that of 1 889 in the outbreak of the Phytoph- 

 thora in the potato fields, causing the whole- 

 sale rotting of the tubers. The Phytoph- 



thora phaseoli Thaxter was discovered in 

 1889 and reappeared destructively last sea- 

 son. The records of the New Jersey Ex- 

 periment Station show that in both of the 

 years mentioned there was much black rot 

 (PhysalosporaBidivellii'Ell.) of the grapes and 

 rust {Gymnosporangiiimmacropus Lk.) in the 

 apple orchards. In 1894 the growing sea- 

 son opened with a wet May and closed 

 with a rainy September. There were long 

 periods of cloudy weather, and often it was 

 hot and showery. It was this year that 

 witnessed the unprecedented outbreak of 

 the fire blight of apple, quince and pear. 



In 1896 there was a rainy June and 

 July, and during this period the asparagus 

 rust {Puccinia asparagi, DC.) made its ap- 

 pearance in the eastern United States to 

 an alarming extent, and last year it was in 

 even greater abundance. There are not 

 sufiicient data for safe and substantial gen- 

 eralizations, but heavy rainfalls in spring 

 seem to induce rusts in grains and orchard 

 and garden crops, and the fire blights of 

 fruit trees. Mid-summer precipitations 

 favor the decay of fruits, particularly the 

 stone fruits, and the rotting of potatoes. 

 Rainfall does not express all the meteoro- 

 logical conditions that need to be taken into 

 consideration in this connection. 



In the discussion Dr. Smith noted that 

 peach-leaf curl, Taphrina deformans, was re- 

 ported to the United States Department of 

 Agriculture in the spring of 1898 from a 

 great many places throughout the country, 

 causing more complaint than at any time 

 during the previous 12 years. 



The Botanic Gardens of Buitemorg, Java. 



David G. Fairchild. 



This was a popular lecture, illustrated by 

 about forty lantern slides. The speaker an- 

 nounced that one of the main objects of the 

 lecture was to interest Americans in the 

 establisment of a stipendium of $1,000 

 by means of which an American botanist 



